


Bloodsport

by Lanskys



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, F/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 00:57:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14461653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanskys/pseuds/Lanskys
Summary: After Frank had re-appeared in her life (again), they went weeks and weeks without an incident, Karen was beginning to think that they might have gained a sense of normalcy in their lives—until tonight.





	Bloodsport

Karen is in the passenger seat of her own car. She's looking down, fidgeting with her fingers as Frank parks the car around the back of her apartment building.

“Let's go inside.”

“Yeah,” she says, “Okay.”

Her hand leaves a red smudge on the dashboard.

Frank's features are unreadable as he follows her up the stairs. She opens the door to her apartment and shuts it after he enters behind her. He strips his coat from his shoulders and slings it over the back of a chair. It's caked in mud around the sleeves. She kicks off her shoes and they clatter when they hit the floor. She flinches at the sound.

“You gotta get that blood off of you,” Frank says, parting her curtains and scanning the street below.

She blinks hard and tilts her head, mouth tight with hard-won triumph. “I’m not sorry,” she says, her hands shaking with a strange new surety born of adrenaline and sheer terror, “I’m not,” and he looks over at her, his eyes dark and unreadable in the dim lighting of her apartment.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he says, coming toward her. He grabs her hands and turns them over; the blood on her hands isn't hers.

His thumb moves reassuringly over her knuckles, “Karen. If you hadn't killed that scumbag, it would have been me.” She doesn't look up at him, so he tries again, a smile ghosting at the edges of his mouth, “Hey, you and I both know there are fewer fish than there are bodies in the Hudson these days anyway, yeah?”

“I know,” she says. She closes her eyes miserably. “It's just—I keep thinking about it—I was just drinking coffee at the end of the counter. I don't know. I didn't know who he was. I was getting up to head home and—and he followed me out and he said, 'Don't I know you, girl?' and I lied, I tried to tell him that I used to waitress there but then he said – and he –”  
Karen's throat closes up and she falls silent. Frank's expression tightens, and after a pause she shakes her head and adds, more levelly this time, “Anyway, it didn't go too well from there...but I took care of it.”

“I guess you damn well did.”

Frank had been the only person she'd thought to call afterward. And she was relieved beyond words when he showed up, when he took care of the body for her.  
“You should get cleaned up.”

“God, do I look that bad?”

She goes over to the kitchen sink and turns the tap on full blast. She wets a cloth and scrubs first at her cheek and then her fingers.

She unbuttons her blouse; it comes away from her skin stickily. There is blood that she hadn't seen before, smeared down her chest. Karen raises the rag to her throat, smoothing it more gently now down the line of her collarbone. Her hand slows and stops; one fist curls over her heart, fingers clenching into the cloth.  
Karen remembers the man's hot sour breath on her cheek, the way the knife felt when she slid it into his gut, like a blade slipping through warm butter.  
She runs the cloth under the tap once more. The collar of her blouse won't come clean, stiff and matted with blood. Frank puts his hands in his pockets and leans back, watching her.

“How did it feel?” he asks abruptly.

She stares. “Horrible,” she says, wondering why he would ask such a thing; and then she pauses and remembers the things he'd said, what he said he'd do to her, to Foggy, to Ellison. “Good,” she breathes, shaking her head and dropping the cloth into the sink. “It felt good.”

Frank nods once, slowly, approvingly.

“If you want I can put on a pot of coffee,” she suggests, looking around the kitchen, doing up a few buttons on her shirt.

He laughs softly, “Coffee at this time of night?”

“I never thought I'd see you turn down coffee,” she gives him a watery smile. Coming over for coffee, that’s a thing he does now. He doesn't do it every day, just most days. He comes and goes, and the thing is, she misses him when he’s not around. But he's here now, and she feels an intense wash of gravity, of something like relief. He’s still here. “And I have a feeling you aren't going to get much sleep tonight.”

He nods, “Got that right.”

“Up all hours of the night, patrolling rooftops,” she says teasingly, “You're turning into a regular superhero, Frank.”

“Superhero?” He echoes skeptically. “As long as I don't always have to dress up like one.”

She laughs. He's right. Superheroes are great, but the thing is, all she can picture is the old X-Men cartoon that was on when she was in middle school, big trench-coats and bigger hair and magenta-and-blue spandex and armor. She doesn't think magenta is really Frank's color. And then there was Matt's costume. “It's not all yellow spandex anymore,” Karen says, “But there's lots of leather.”

“I am not going to be the Boy Wonder,” he shakes his head. “to Red's Batman if that's what you want.”

“I wouldn't dream of it.”

“I'm relieved.”

“You're more of a Nightwing than a Robin,” Karen goes on thoughtfully.

“Stop it,” he teases, almost smiling. He gets to his feet and grabs his coat, shaking his head. “Listen, Karen, I'm gonna go. You should take a real shower and get some rest. You have my burner number.”

She nods. “You should try to get some sleep too. For once.”

“Nah, I'll be alright,” he says as he turns for the door. “I'll be around, you don't have anything to worry about.”

His hand reaches for the doorknob and a sudden burst of energy compels her forward. “Frank,” she says, reaching out.

His hand meets hers. She thinks there is a kind of softness in it that is so strange, so accidental that she could nearly cry. She tells herself that the warmth she feels means nothing. It comes from softness, from recognition. Not from him—however handsome, however sonorous his voice and careful his hands. But still, she feels a warmth tensing her thighs.  
His eyes are shadowed like the hollow sockets of a skull in the dark; she represses a shudder, and gives his hand a squeeze. She thinks of what these rough hands would feel like on her, mapping her body all the way down to the edge of her underwear—

She bites her lip, fighting with herself, excusing herself. What does she expect? She is friends with Frank Castle, a killer, a man who has done unspeakable things, but also a man of honor, of truth, someone who would never hurt her: who would not be confused, confused even into desire, by the sight, by the hour, by his voice and his body in the darkness?  
Her breathing quickens, a mixture of fear and fascination.

“What?” he asks.

Her lips part with a pop. She doesn't know what to say. It seems easier, then, to lift her head, to kiss him. And so she does. It's quick, chaste. She pulls back and he just watches her. She thinks she ought to feel exposed, but she doesn't.

“The hell are you doing, Karen?”

She doesn't have the chance to answer because Frank leans in and kisses her, slowly, catching Karen's upper lip in the pull of his mouth. She makes a noise of surprise, braces her hand on his chest—and then she is kissing him back, she has her arms around his neck before she even realizes what she's doing, the lines she's allowing to be crossed. His hand goes into her hair, feeling the delicate hollow where her skull meets her neck. His thumb drags over the soft line of her neck, the sensitive curve of her jaw. She pulls him in closer until who's pushing and who's moving is impossible to know.

His palm slides warmly under her shirt, over her bare waist, and the last vestige of numbness slides off of her, to the floor, into the air, beyond remembering. Every inch of her skin is frozen and burning, like fever or frostbite.

Frank tastes like metal and like nothing, nothing, skin and muscle, a man.

She pulls him back, back, back toward her bedroom, hands clasped on either side of his face. She falls back onto the bed first and he lands on top of her, careful not to crush her under him.

She shimmies out of her skirt and opens her knees to make space for him, his thigh comes forward to apply the slightest pressure to the throbbing ache between her legs.

She realizes then that this is bad. God, this is bad.

She imagines the smell of liquor, sharp and sweet, and stale, black coffee, and the red spray of someone else's blood across his face.  
Is this what she wants? Right here, right now? With him?

Only, yes, yes it is.

She's wet, has been so, so wet—has been blocking it out, ignoring the haze of desire creeping in around the edges, the way it latched onto her anger, her fear. Frank slides his hands up from her hips to her bloodied shirt, undoing the buttons shakily.

The shirt hangs open like a sullied surrender flag. He says into her ear, hot-breathed, his teeth on the lobe, “We’re going to burn this.”

“Now?”

“Later.”

He pushes her shirt off—moving down and mouthing against her collarbone, her chest, the softness of her breast where it swells over the cup of her bra. She makes small, soft sounds, breathing tight small breaths through a throat constricted with fear and desire.

He doesn't try to work his fingers under the elastic of her panties, but she wants to tell him not to be careful with her, wants to open her mouth to say so, but she's past the ability to form coherent sentences, breathless and dry-mouthed.

Instead, she pulls his shirt over his head, yanking and fighting with the material, parting and panting just long enough to discard it and then they reconnect, stomach to stomach, breathing into each other. Her fingers touch muscles and scars; her hands are shaking.

Frank seems to get the hint because his grip on her tightens and he starts to make his way down her body. She can feel his cock pressing against her, hard and thick, but he doesn't move to undo his pants—a definitive display of interest, but not urgency.

He mouths at her through her panties, and she whimpers, stretches her arms out to either side of the bed, grabbing the mattress to steady herself. She parts her knees further, and when his fingers hook around her panties to pull them down, there's a burst of heat at the junction of her thighs that sends her reeling. Either Frank feels it too, through the contagion of their touch, or she's just kneed him in the face, because he looks up at her then, head raised and cheek against her thigh. Dark eyes blinking in the yellow artificial light that pours into the darkness through the window.

  
She waves her hand, all clear, go on. Go on.

She can picture how this must look: she's laying there, soft and prone and belly-up on a bed with Frank Castle's mouth on her clit; this must be grotesque, seen from outside, innocent little Karen Page giving it up to the Punisher. Only he isn't a psychopath, and she isn't innocent; the two of them are locked close together for good reason. Karen looks down at him; her vision goes blurry from mis-focus and she blinks it away, trying to focus on the expanse of skin on his shoulder, the smooth golden glow of his complexion, the impossible breadth of his back.

She closes her eyes and sees red.

No, no, she is alive, she is safe.

He lifts his head, his nose and mouth are almost in-perceptibly wet; and for a moment she imagines them dark with blood. She shuts her eyes again. She's never asked him how many people he's killed—

“Open your eyes. Karen, look at me.” He is hovering over her now, face-to-face and looking down at her as if she might break. He should know better.

“I know who I'm with, Frank. I know what I'm doing. I want this.”

Only then does Frank undo his belt and kick off his pants. He flips her over onto her stomach and drags her back toward him by her hips. His hands encompass her—heavy, warm, strong.

She is not made of glass and Frank knows this, Karen's eyes water as he grabs roughly at her hips. She can feel him, pressing hard against her, and all she can think is finally, finally.

She gasps and buries her face into a pillow as Frank fills her—it is like being eaten alive, being burned alive, being wholly consumed by something hot and sharp and intense. He thrusts into her again and kisses her back as a little half-sob breaks its way up out of her throat.

She feels dizzy, her senses swimming, she gasps a little, remembering to breathe. The memory sluices in of the man's body going down outside of the diner, the swift abstract flash of blood on the concrete. She shuts her eyes and remembers him falling onto his knees, breath heavy, near the edge of sobs.

A man’s dead and Karen's heart is choking in her throat. She is shaking and moaning and remembering the feeling of the blood seeping through her shirt as Frank moves above her, inside her. He puts a hand on her shoulder to steady her against him as he moves with dogged dedication. She can feel blood and adrenaline flowing through her veins, the ghost of his breath (a last, choking, dying breath) against her skin.

She reaches back with her hand to grip Frank's wrist until her knuckles stand out white. A feeling builds at the base of her stomach, heavy and warm, on top of the sick, shaky one that's been thrumming through her all night—and there's something so exquisite about the combination, it takes every ounce of her willpower keep breathing.

Frank lets go of Karen's shoulder and she rolls over onto her back as he drives himself deeper again and again. She arches to meet him, their bodies pressed against each other in a frantic bid to connect. He reaches down and circles his fingers firmly against her clit until she feels white noise sensation, forcing a single desperate little sound out of her. The two of them are working together, her hips moving against his, his ragged breathing an encouragement that sends spasms through her.

His whole face is red with arousal and restraint, a light sheen of sweat making him gleam in the soft light, holding back a groan as his hips slam into hers, burying himself so deep inside her that it’s almost painful. Pleasure drives through her like a scythe, so sharp that she crumples into the bed.

She comes gasping, on the verge of tears. Tensing up around him so tightly she thinks she could break in half. Distantly she feels Frank shaking against her, groaning out her name.  
In the moment when she returns to her body and opens her eyes, Frank is shushing her. His thumb is pressed to her parted lips; Karen bites it.

A long moment passes before Frank rolls over onto his back.

Her face is wet, her arms and legs are slack and her whole body aches like a bruise.

He turns to her and there's something dark and needy there in his dazed expression, and instantly she kisses him, half-expecting to be pushed away, but he relaxes fully against her. I am, she wants to tell him, so glad you're here. For all that they hold on their shoulders, the shared weight of loss and guilt, the things they pass back and forth every time they touch—she looks at him, knows him, and feels known in return.

Most days, she can’t take her eyes off the shadows beneath his eyes, the sharp unhappy twist of his mouth. It softens when he sees her, but the etch of it remains, deeper and deeper every day.

But here in her bedroom, in the pool of tossed pillows and percale sheets, the bed that swamps her when she sleeps (she dreams of drowning just as she dreams of shooting Wesley, arms tight around a fat pillow so when she wakes up she won’t keep shaking), the light is softer and she can almost pretend that he is merely Frank, not the shadow-sharpened figure trapped tracking bad guys through endless hours of the night.

When he pulls back, his eyes drift to the door. Karen sees where he's looking and her hands tighten where they rest against him.

“Please. Don't,” she says, simply, her voice hoarse.

He doesn't.


End file.
